Making art has been therapeutic to me for as long as I can remember. The process of art making is a way I can escape reality and focus my creative energy into something productive. Working with a material such as clay allows me to internally explore and reflect on my experiences and serves as an appropriate and healthy coping mechanism.
Mentally I split my work into two sections: art surrounding trauma and pain and art surrounding beauty and joy. Using my art to work through trauma has allowed me to better navigate my emotions and self-understanding, while focusing on aesthetic components, as well. I use symbols that represent certain people, places, or events that have occurred in my life, and find ways to visually portray them in an interesting way. While my style has significantly changed over the years, my art has continued to help me understand joy during dark times. Nature, and what lies within, provides me signals through natural phenomena. Creating artwork about the experiences I love alters my self talk and opens my mind to new ways of visually expressing my ideas. Creating art has given me the opportunity to better understand my life, the surrounding world, and my sense of identity and internal peace.
